I'll admit to being a little unsettled by the new Antlers album Blight. Partly this is because its gloomy reflections on environmental apocalypse are discomfortingly bleak - though, it should be pointed out, not without good reason, in light of claims that the planet has reached its first climate tipping point. But partly it's because the "fuck around, find out" narrative and especially the implication that human extinction might be a good thing is not a million miles away from the arguments typically used by ecofascists.
However, maybe this is reading too much into things. Let's give Peter Silberman the benefit of the doubt. The record is a heartfelt personal response to an unfolding disaster - one that we absolutely should be confronted with and acknowledge, albeit belatedly (arguably too late), rather than one that we should be able to continue to conveniently ignore.
In many ways, encountering Blight was like bumping into an old flame, its understated beauty and power helping to rekindle a love that, since 2011's Burst Apart, had gone cold.
Buzz review here.
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